


je vois la vie en rose

by renjeon



Series: do you think about me, too? [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Denial of Feelings, Flowers, Fluff, Gyuhao, M/M, Pining, another soulmate au by yours truly, it'll make more sense in context but yeah, uhhh kind of a holocaust thing happens?, y'all didn't know this but i love gyuhao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 07:28:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14666268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renjeon/pseuds/renjeon
Summary: He would never admit it, but this was not the first nor the last time he registered the boy as beautiful. Maybe even breathtaking, but he’d take that word to his grave.





	je vois la vie en rose

**Author's Note:**

> "je vois [la vie en rose](https://youtu.be/ry7tAB-Dzms)" directly translates in english to "i see my life in pink" which is often associated with being in love and seeing life as more beautiful than it may be in reality :)
> 
> i have had this sitting in my notes for upwards of 92 years and never had the courage to finish it...but finally...i have done it. this is kind of a continuation of the [wonshua soulmate fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11570580) i have but also? not really? it really just follows the same concept uhuhuhu  
> anyways!!!! like always be sure to give me feedback because it is much appreciated!!! i love all of u always!!  
> \- amaya

Minghao hated flowers. Stories constantly wax poetic about them and their perfume smell, their bright colors, the way they always inevitably symbolize a lover, whilst Minghao thought they smelled like powder and they made his eyes burn and his nose itch and his life miserable.

After his dad died, Xu Minghao was moved from Anshan to live with his mother in Seoul. She owned a small flower shop in the middle of the city and told Minghao she would pay him 7,000 won an hour if he did his job happily (at this time, he earned 3,000 won an hour). It’s not that he hated the job itself; it’s just he really, really hated flowers, and should not be working in a place that always has him on the verge of an allergy attack.

He especially hated flowers during the summer, because apparently that’s when romance is at its peak and everyone comes straight to Crazy Daisy as if there aren’t two other plant shops within a three-block diameter of this one. It was usually the same scene: a teenage boy will walk in and say something stupid and sexist like “where are the girly flowers” and Minghao will put on his customer service smile and say something like “girls tend to like tulips or roses, which will be arranged to your left.” They never buy tulips (always roses because they know that one) and they never join the Garden Club and they never come back. Or maybe they do; Minghao wouldn’t know. Faces blurred together the longer time stretched on. 

This day, however, was one of the days when none of that happened. It was a Thursday afternoon in the middle of August when the remnants of July’s extreme heat were finally starting to dwindle. Minghao, who was leaning against the register and counting how many people wearing red shirts walked by, expected the approaching gaggle of college boys to walk right past the shop without noticing it. Instead, they burst through the doors, voices raised and blending together in the air, causing Minghao to immediately shoot upright.

There were four of them. One of them had a red shirt on, bringing the grand total of red shirt wearers of the day to twenty-eight. They all disregarded Minghao, half of them going to one side of the shop and the other half going to the other. Minghao didn’t think he’d seen this many people in the store at the same time (except for the time during the summer prior when this guy with a really low quality cigarette thrust himself through the doors like “where are the girly flowers” and his cancer stick set off the fire alarm and the entire fire department had crammed themselves into the bedroom-sized franchise to extinguish a fire that didn’t exist).

“Jeonghan would like these, right?” One of the boys, not that tall but well built, swiped one of the flower pots holding a small yellow dahlia off of the shelf. Another boy who was much shorter than everyone else with round cheeks and sharp eyes let out a snort, shoving the other one by the arm. Minghao felt his heart kickstart as the boy came _this_ close to dropping the container on the ground.

“Jeonghan’s a simple man,” the small one spoke out, moving past the taller one (who was putting the plant _back_ , thank _God_ ) to peer at the shelves. “You could grab any one of these and he’d be on his knees kissing the ground you walk on.”

“Hi!”

Minghao jumped like he’d been zapped by static, tearing his eyes away from where he was staring in complete and utter shock to the boy who had seemingly appeared out of thin air in front of him. He was of average height and had piercing brown eyes. The corners of his lips turned up, appearing almost catlike. Minghao didn’t know this guy nor did he recognize him from any previous instance, but he felt like he could trust him with his social security number if an emergency ever turned up.

“Uh,” Minghao said back most eloquently, eyebrows furrowing. The boy simply smiled.

“Do you have any recommendations for decorative flowers?” he asked in a song-like voice, tilting his head as his gaze slowly swept the arrangements behind Minghao’s head. “We all just moved into the apartments down the block and were wondering what would look good.”

“Uh,” Minghao repeated, hands starting to fumble with the hem of his shirt nervously. He was still distracted and strangely intrigued the whole college boy situation and, to make it worse, he hated being asked for recommendations or suggestions almost as much as he hated flowers. God only knew why customers thought to trust him well enough to let him make decisions for them. “Well…” he began again, flinching slightly when the boy’s eyes dropped to meet his, “…it depends on where you would want to place the flowers…like, if you wanted to keep them on a window sill or on the patio or…just…inside.”

The boy tapped his chin with a nimble finger, eyebrows scrunched together in thought. The sound of chatter coming from the other boys started to fill every space in the room. Another boy, tall with tan skin and chocolate-colored hair, walked toward the desk, tapping the one who was about to open his mouth and probably say something to Minghao again on the shoulder. He was the one wearing the red shirt.

“I feel like we should wrap this up, hyung,” he spoke in a low voice, words vibrating like the strings of a contrabass. “I don’t want to, like, break anything on accident, and I think Jihoon is about to kick Seungcheol’s knees in.”

The boy with the cat smile blinked quickly as if this news was somewhat detrimental and he had completely forgotten it was even a factor. He turned to Minghao with an apologetic smile. “Give me one second while I sort them out.”

Whatever Minghao was going to say got caught in his throat when “hyung” turned around and walked away to join the others, leaving the very tall boy towering over him. Minghao found himself staring at a pair of deep brown eyes that zeroed in at an uncomfortably close vicinity. The boy dipped down past the counter, forearms flat against the marble as he completely crowded into Minghao’s space. Minghao leaned backwards just in time to avoid a forehead collision, eyes widening in alarm at this sudden closeness between his face and this stranger’s. “C-Can I- can I _help_ you?” Minghao stuttered, voice kicking up a major sixth, his back already starting to cramp up from where he was bending backwards like a broken matchstick.

“It’s you,” the boy whispered slowly, eyes burning holes into Minghao’s face. Minghao flinched away further when he felt the stranger’s warm breath hit his chin.

“I-I don’t” - Minghao had to straighten up and press himself back against the shelves behind him, because if he bent any further down he’d probably snap in half - “ _know_ you?”

“I’ve been trying to find you,” the boy mumbled, eyes searching Minghao’s face with enough intensity to make the latter feel jittery, “for years.”

Minghao choked on his spit, the shelves behind him shaking dangerously and threatening to dump three-dozen flower pots right onto his skull. “I-I think you have the wrong guy,” he spluttered. This had to be some sort of elaborate prank, right? A joke? Just some college boy having his college fun?

“No…no,” the boy exhaled, voice suddenly softer, a little smile tugging at his lips, “it’s definitely you.” The way this guy was looking at him all of the sudden made Minghao feel warm, and he knew his face probably turned an embarrassing red. “Same eyes…same lips. I knew I would find you.”

The sound of the voice was so gentle that Minghao almost forgot to be confused, but quickly regained his demeanor, trying his best not to stutter at this sudden breach in his daily life. “I literally,” he began, but found his words getting weaker the longer he looked at this boy, “have no idea…who you are…” The eyes an inch away from his own had a warmth that felt…familiar. They were brown like topaz and deep like the ocean, and he had definitely drowned in them before. There was something about the smile, too — the way his canines poked out against his impossibly pink and glossy lips — that gave him a sense of deja vu. Minghao squinted, finally pushing himself out from against the wall cautiously. “Wait…who-”

“Mingyu!” someone yelled, causing Minghao to jump and mutter out a quick “ah, that startled me.” He immediately tore his eyes away from the boy’s face to look down at his hands and blush deeply. “We’re leaving, Mingyu-ya,” another voice, deeper, announced over the sound of the store’s door opening.

“I’m coming,” the boy at the counter let out, albeit weakly, starting to step away as Minghao studied his own fingers with a newfound intensity. Minghao didn’t quite catch what was said, but it sounded a lot like ‘stay put,’ and he didn’t look back up until he heard the door clatter shut.

 

Minghao hated flowers. He especially hated roses — they were stereotypical and unoriginal and he always had to put in extra requests for roses when his mom ordered a shipping of new flowers at the end of every week because everyone adored them for no reason other than their cinematic symbolism for love and romance and what-have-you. He, on the other hand, loathed them. So, upon having a blood red rose thrust into his unsuspecting face, he wasn’t too extremely thrilled. He was even less thrilled to find himself staring _again_ into a pair of wide topaz eyes in between the velvety petals. 

Mingyu, he recalled, is what his friends called him when they came to the shop three days ago. He was as surprised at himself that he remembered the name as Mingyu seemed to be (he had forced thoughts of the encounter to the back of his mind, telling himself that it was just one of those days), and he was almost confused at the latter’s facial expression before he realized he hadn’t said the name in his head. He had said it out loud. With his mouth.

“You remembered,” the tall boy breathed out. His voice was like honey.

“What are you doing back here?” Minghao derailed, eyes crossing slightly as he struggled to look down at the rose that was nearly pressed against his nose. “And _why_ is there a rose in my face?”

The rose was suddenly lowered, giving Minghao a widescreen view of Mingyu’s white, blinding smile. “It’s for you,” the boy said dumbly. Minghao scrunched his nose in detest.

“I don’t like roses.”

“Everyone likes roses.”

“Well, no, because I don’t like roses.”

Mingyu dropped the rose onto the counter with a pout etched into his face. He tilted his head a little and gave Minghao this look that resembled wonder. “What’s your name?” he mumbled softly.

Minghao snatched the rose off of the counter, wincing slightly as a thorn cut the skin on the pad of his middle finger. “Shouldn’t you know it already?” he grumbled, now feeling more at war with roses than he normally did. He circled around in his space, searching for a place to stash the flower until the dude left so he could trash it. “You know, since you’ve been looking for me for _years_ or something.”

Behind where Minghao was bent over stuffing the flower into the front pocket of a backup gardening apron that had fallen from the thumbtack on the wall, Mingyu let out an indignant sort of huff. “That’s not how it works,” he grumbled. When Minghao got up and turned to face him again, he was blinking with wide, puppy-like eyes. 

Minghao sighed exasperatedly through his nose, lips hardening into a flat line. “Xu Minghao,” he answered curtly, deciding to study the fresh cut on his finger to avoid meeting the boy’s gaze again. “Look, _Mingyu_ , can’t you see I have a job to be doing here? I don’t get paid for nothing.” He tried his best to glare at Mingyu, cheeks tinted pink in slight embarrassment when said boy swept his gaze around the empty wasteland of a shop. Their eyes met again, Mingyu sporting a knowing gaze that confirmed the knowledge that the boy behind the counter really _did_ get paid for nothing, a whole 3,000 won per hour for nothing, and Minghao decided he was beyond tired of this guy.

“You really don’t remember me, do you?” Mingyu breathed out sullenly, eyeing Minghao up and down as if he was studying a word problem on a math paper. 

“Not even a little bit,” Minghao stated dryly. “Did we go to the same school or something? Are you some sort of family friend?”

Mingyu crossed his arms and let out a huff, face looking a bit dejected, but his eyes were glimmering. “You’re lucky I have plans today,” Mingyu quipped, starting to back away, “but don’t think this is over yet.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Minghao’s practically wailed as Mingyu vanished from the shop. He glanced behind him at the rose on the floor that had begun slipping out of the apron’s pocket and felt his eye twitch. The petals fluttered ever so slightly under the air vents, and the red texture appeared silk-like underneath the dim store lights. He crossed his arms tight across his chest and stomped to the back to find a bandaid for his finger.

 

It was Wednesday. Minghao’s mom had let him go on a break, telling him he looked “dehydrated and dead,” so he left the shop to go find a place to grab a cold drink. He was grateful, because he never really got breaks, but his contentment was instantly flushed down the toilet of his soul when he saw a sickeningly familiar face a few feet down the sidewalk. Mingyu was standing there, appearing dumbfounded, a purple limonium clutched in his fist.

Minghao stopped in his tracks, blinked twice, and spun on his heel.

“Wait!” Before Minghao could even take two steps in the opposite direction, Mingyu’s hand was wrapped around his forearm, effectively halting him from his retreat. With a heavy sigh, Minghao turned his head slightly in order to look at Mingyu out of the corner of his eye. Mingyu had a light smile on his face, tilting his head gently. It made Minghao want to vomit.

He yanked his arm out of the grip and turned around fully, crossing his arms and wrinkling his nose. “When will you give it a rest?” he lamented. His eyes landed on the limonium, sighing again. 

“When you remember me,” Mingyu quipped cheerfully, giving the smaller boy’s nose a soft _boop_ with the petals of the plant. With a dissatisfied groan, Minghao grabbed the flower and took a step back. He eyed it warily.

“I don’t know why it’s so important that I remember you,” he grumbled. Mingyu’s dejected face told him that was the complete wrong thing to say, but there was no such thing as a do-over. The sentence hung in the air for a moment.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” 

Mingyu’s soft voice was almost carried away in the light breeze. Minghao’s eyebrows scrunched together. He shifted from one foot to the other. “I mean…no?” he managed. It wasn’t something he’d really thought about before. “I mean, theoretically, there’s probably someone out there made for me, but…” He trailed off into a whisper when his eyes accidentally landed on Mingyu’s. They were suddenly really close — _too_ close. Close enough to where Minghao was hyper-aware of the other people crossing the sidewalks around them.

“Are you sure?” Both of Mingyu’s eyebrows were raised expectantly and he had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. His breath danced on the plane of Minghao’s face. 

Minghao was too confused and alarmed to come up with an answer. Instead of answering, he stumbled backwards slightly, grip tightening on the flower in his hands. “Why do you care?” he grumbled, taking another step back. The intensity of Mingyu’s gaze was too much. He was probably waiting for a proper answer, or something, but Minghao didn’t trust his own mouth — not when the light touch of fingers ghosted down his arm to his wrist. He stepped away again, holding the flower tight against his chest, and retreated with a weak “I have to get back to work.”

 

When he got back to the shop, he replaced the apron that was discarded on the ground back onto the thumbtack. He placed the limonium gingerly next to the rose. The next week, a bright yellow daffodil joined, followed by a blush-colored gladiola.

 

Minghao would never admit his growing disappointment when a whole week passed without Mingyu’s presence (if you ever asked him he’d say “I was just so used to being annoyed that time without the pest felt too quiet”). It was the end of September — the wind was starting to have a bite in it, and rain was more common in the evening hours as time went on. Because it was colder, people didn’t have a strong need for flowers. On a normal day, the store will usually be dead.

The front door chimed, signaling a not normal day. A tall boy stepped through the doors with dark, brooding eyes and dark hair. He was definitely unfairly handsome, which Minghao noticed to his dismay as he forced himself up from his slumped position on the counter. “Hi,” he began, “welcome to…” His voice lost its tune as he looked down at the man’s hand. In it was a snow white tulip. _God, not another guy._

The boy stopped about a foot in front of the counter, using his arm to complete the distance. Minghao stared, dumbfounded, at the flower in front of his nose. It smelled like fresh laundry.

“This is from Mingyu,” the boy stated. The sound of the name caused a weird jolt to run up Minghao’s spine.

“M-Mingyu?” he spluttered, reaching out slowly as if the flower would shock him. “How did you…how do you know him?”

When the flower was in Minghao’s hand, the boy’s face was back in view. He smiled warmly. “I’m Wonwoo,” he replied, “his roommate. He’s caught the flu, so he wanted me to deliver this to you.”

 _The flu._ Minghao could’ve laughed.

“He feels really bad,” the boy — Wonwoo — continued as Minghao turned the tulip around in his fingers. “He misses you a lot.”

With no permission at all, Minghao’s cheeks flushed bright red. He cleared his throat and shoved the tulip to the side. “Well, I didn’t miss him at all,” he huffed. “Tell him if he comes back and gets me sick he’s dead meat.” His voice didn’t sound as angry as he wanted it to, if Wonwoo’s knowing smile was any indication. With a dip of his head and a tiny wave of departure, the handsome boy was out the door. Minghao glanced at the flower next to him, letting out a slow breath of relief.

 

It all happened like this:

Another week had passed without Mingyu’s presence. Minghao would never admit that he was slowly going insane. And on one night, at around eight-thirty, he was going through his phone and decided to Google all of the flowers he was gifted and see how he was supposed to plant and care for them.

That’s not what he found at all.

Apparently, limonium symbolized _remembrance_ , daffodils symbolized _rebirth_ and _new beginnings_ , gladiolas symbolized _faithfulness_ , and tulips were gifted as a declaration of love.

Suddenly, Minghao wasn’t in the flower shop anymore. He was in a clearing with short, shabby buildings all around him. The sky looked bleak. There were kids all around him dressed in torn and dirty clothes. There was an intense feeling in his body — hopelessness. Fear.

He felt something clasped in his hand and he looked down at it. There was a hand in his, and his eyes trailed up the arm slowly to the face of whom the hand seemed to belong to. It was a girl: she had dazzling brown eyes, a sloped nose, and a smile that could combat the sun. Suddenly the bleak sky didn’t matter as the girl turned to him and smiled even bigger (if it was even possible), two sharp canines appearing above her lips. Her face was streaked with dirt, and her hair was tangled.

“Lise,” the girl spoke out, soothing and warm, “you’re okay.”

The language wasn’t Korean, nor was it Chinese, but Minghao could understand it. He clutched her hand tighter. “I’m scared,” Minghao said in a voice that wasn’t his own, but a young girl’s. “We’re going to die, Alice.”

Then there was a hand on Minghao’s cheek, and Minghao suddenly knew what love was. His eyes trailed down to the golden star of David pinned on her shirt before flicking his gaze back up. The girl, Alice, had her thumb brushing against the height of Minghao’s cheekbone. “Like I’ve said before,” she mumbled, quiet, “we’ll find each other again. Okay?”

Minghao reached up, placing his hand over the one on his cheek. He closed his eyes and breathed in. 

When Minghao’s eyes opened, he was back in the flower shop, both hands braced against the counter and knuckles white with tension. He felt like all of the air had been sucked from his lungs and blown into his face with a vacuum. He suddenly felt dizzy and warm all over, and he was sure he was gonna pass out.

“Minghao?”

He caught a glimpse of Mingyu’s face at the door — dazzling brown eyes, a sloped nose, and a smile that could combat the sun — and everything went black.

 

Minghao felt like he was out for three seconds, but when he opened his eyes he was laying in his own bed on the second floor of the flower shop. Not to mention there was a very distressed-looking Mingyu hovering over him all of the sudden.

“Hao,” came Mingyu’s voice, quivering slightly. Minghao felt calloused hands cup his face, squishing his cheeks in slightly. “Hao, Hao, Hao-“

“Jesus, _what_?” Minghao grumbled. He looked up, feigning annoyance, but the second his eyes met Mingyu’s there was a jolt of warmth through his spine. He would never admit it, but this was not the first nor the last time he registered the boy as beautiful. Maybe even breathtaking, but he’d take that word to his grave.

The fingers on Minghao’s face gave slightly, only leaving a soft brush on the skin. “You’re okay.”

Minghao nodded. “And you’re…” He trailed off, eyes gliding down the slope of Mingyu’s nose and landing on where a bottom lip was being worried under teeth. He remembered the girl and the camp — slightly, like wisps of a dream clinging to the mind after being woken up — and he let his eyes find Mingyu’s again. “…you’re the girl.”

The look on Mingyu’s face was enough to put a smile on Minghao’s. He was still beyond confused and couldn’t begin to put a finger on all he was feeling. All he felt was that- “I missed you.”

At first, he thought Mingyu had said it, but his own throat tightened around the words. He didn’t even realize his hand had joined Mingyu’s until he felt the soft twitch of fingers under his palm and against his face. He said it again to clarify - “I missed you,” - that, yeah, that’s what he was feeling - “I missed you,” - the loneliness of what felt like centuries without the warmth he’d come to know so well. “God, I missed you so much.”

Mingyu laughed, short and airy, intertwining his fingers with Minghao’s. “I told you we’d find each other, didn’t I?” He pressed a kiss with soft lips to the back of Minghao’s hand, sending a shock up the boy’s arm. “Even if you didn’t remember me, you asshole.”

Minghao groaned, deciding he’d like to be unconscious again. “I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning, you dolt.” The angry infliction he tried to put behind it failed, only resulting in the both of them giggling. 

With a grunt, Minghao pulled himself upright, this time not flinching away when his face ended up half an inch from Mingyu’s. “So, is this, like,” he began, finding himself halfway submerged in that sea of topaz, “a do-over?”

Mingyu hummed thoughtfully, and Minghao felt a hand at the back of his neck. “I guess so.”

And there were lips on his.

And Minghao drowned.

 

Minghao stared at the check in his hands, confused. He then looked up at his mom, who was spraying the roses on the top shelf. “Did you make a mistake?” he asked, eyes going back down to the sheet of paper. “This is a lot more than usual.”

His mother stepped down from the ladder, sparing him a tiny smile before walking to the back. “I told you I would give you 7,000 an hour if you worked happily, didn’t I?” she called behind her.

Minghao glanced at the full vase of flowers next to the register. His eyes studied the velvety petals of the rose (miraculously still alive after all of this time, the _irony_ ), and he allowed himself to smile. It’s something he’s been getting used to.

Being happy.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: buseoksun  
> twitter: leunseos


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